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COMMANDERY OF TBE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



WAR PAPER 90. 



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COMMAMDEI^Y OF THE DI^Tl^lCT OF COLDMBIA. 



WAR PAPERS. 



90 

She gest of l^oyaltij iq tl^e gtate of ^irgiqia iq 1S61. 



Companion V- 

THOMAS H^ McKEE, 

First Lieutenant U. S. Volunteers. 

READ AT THE STATED MEETING OF DECEMBER 4, 1912. 
PUBLICATION DIRECTED BY UNANIMOUS CONSENT OF THE COMMANDERY. 



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The writer enlisted in the First Regiment of Virginia Volunteer 
Infantry September ii, 1861. He tried to go with the three- 
month men in April, but failed. The three-months organization 
was perfected at Wheeling and mustered May 24, 1861. The 
War DepEWti^ent, doubting the loyalty of the regiment, refused 
to furnish them arms. 

A few loyal men in Wellsburg, Brooke County, made applica- 
tion ip. Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, for one thousand 
stand of arms, at the same time providing a bond for payment 
and an assurance of the use intended. They were furnished by 
Governor Andrew and the regiment received them promptly and 
moved to the scenes of the war, May 27, 1861. 

It was General McClellan's order and intention to fortify 
Wheeling, making it an outpost, but Colonel Kelley asked for 
permission to move with his regiment, the First Virginia Infan- 
try, so as to fix a boundary farther to the south. This order was 
given, and three days thereafter. May 30, Kelley's command 
occupied Grafton, a central point, the junction of the divisions of 
the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad running to Wheeling and Parkers- 
burg. Three days afterwards, on June 3, the battle of Philipp 
was fought. Colonel Kelley was active in this engagement 
with his regiment, receiving a dangerous wound. This first 
regiment had many first experiences : First regiment to organize 
in any of the southern states, first in defense of native state, in 
first battle, and its commander was the first officer wounded 
in battle in the Civil War. 

The operation of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad as an inci- 
dent of the war is worthy of historical record. On March 26, 
1 86 1, Colonel Kelley notified the official head of thtj road to 



have a train of cars in the depot at Wheeling at 4 A. M., May 27, 
1 86 1 . The agent of the road replied that he had orders to refuse 
cars for the movement of troops. Colonel Kelley officially 
notified this official that if there should be a failure to furnish the 
cars he had ordered he would put the officials in jail and take 
possession of the road in the name of the United States. The 
cars were there, the regiment moved by train at 4 A. M., May 
27, and ever thereafter during the war the Baltimore & Ohio 
Railroad was the loyal friend and supporter of the national 
authority. If the same energy and loyal support had been exer- 
cised in many of the border states, millions would have been 
saved in money, and homes and people would have been saved 
the anguish of domestic strife. In no other state was there any 
such activity against the leading plotters of rebellion as in 
Virginia. 

The loyal people were largely in a majority in most of the 
western counties. In Preston County in 1861 out of a popula- 
tion of twenty-three hundred men of military age, eighteen 
hundred enlisted in the Union army, while sixty men entered the 
Confederate service. 

More than thirty-two thousand volunteers were enrolled and 
served the national cause, one regiment of light artillery, seven 
regiments of cavalry and seventeen regiments of infantry. 

Let me generalize for a moment. 

Resistance to national authority was of early growth in the 
colonies and its progress culminated in the Civil War. Twenty- 
two distinct attempts are well known. Shay's rebellion, 1786 
The Whiskey rebellion in Pennsylvania, 1796; nullification in 
South Carolina, 1832; are the most prominent in the list, and 
in each of these the President with the governor administered 
drastic and efficient remedies. 

President Jackson in 1832, in dealing with the nullification 
rebellion did what should have been done by President Buchanan 



in 1 860-6 1. In his Proclamation of December 10, 1832, he said: 
"Eloquent appeals to your passions, to state pride, to native 
courage, etc., were used to prepare you for the period when the 
mask, which concealed the hideous features of disunion, should 
be taken oflf. " He warned the people and prepared to main- 
tain the national authority. Later one of the conspirators 
approached President Jackson on the subject of a compromise, 
" Compromise!" said the stern old patriot, " I will make no com- 
promise with traitors. I will have no negotiations. I will exe- 
cute the laws. Calhoun shall be tried for treason, and hanged if 
found guilty, if he does not instantly cease his rebellious course. " 

This treatment of incipient rebellion was effective in 1832-3. 
And if the same spirit had been applied in 1861, all would have 
been well and we would have saved the nation its awful price for 
the more perfect union. 

In proof of the foregoing facts and conditions let me add the 
testimony of Lewis Cass, of Michigan, who was Secretary of 
War in 1832, and used the army in safeguarding the national 
interest in South Carolina. In i860 Lewis Cass was Secretary 
of State in President Buchanan's cabinet. That the incidents 
of 1832 were being reenacted in 1861 is given in the Secretary's 
reason for resigning from the cabinet. On December 20, i860, 
South Carolina having passed the ordinance of secession, Secre- 
tary Cass said, ' ' But it is all over ; this is the beginning of the end ; 
the people of the South are mad; the people of the North are 
asleep. The President is pale with fear, for his official house- 
hold is full of traitors, and conspirators control the government." 

In suppressing the Whiskey insurrection in 1794, President 
Washington was confronted with some of the same facts sur- 
rounding President Buchanan in 1860-61. Governor Miflin of 
Pennsylvania, and John Randolph, Secretary of State, ques- 
tioned Washington's constitutional power to coerce the people, 
but Washington, unlike Buchanan, stopped not at constitutional 



quibbling but used his authority to the utmost. He put the 
army in the field, and treason fled. 

In the crises of 1787 when Shay's rebellion was threatening all 
New England, while the fires of insurrection were ready to kindle 
in other sections, the prompt action of the colonial or state 
authority at a time when the strong souled yeomen were moving 
for a stronger government, by prompt action the authority of the 
government prevailed and the rebellion ended, 

VIRGINIA ERROR. 

Virginia was the storm center of the war. The boundary of 
the war zone could have been fixed more than a hundred miles 
south of Richmond. Colonel Kelley, as we have seen changed the 
war zone in West Virginia. Judge J. M. Mason, as we shall see, 
later proposed Raleigh, North Carolina, as a point of rendezvous. 
But the conspirators in Richmond courted the opportimity to 
bring the armies then assembling in the southern states to Virginia. 
General Lee, if sincere in his veneration and devotions to the 
state, could have easily centered the war zone south of Virginia 
and saved his fair homeland the waste of war. But no, he 
courted the coming hosts of rebellion. These combined legions 
were to constitute the army, the command of which was to 
immortalize his name and fame. This will develop in the further 
discussion. 

There can be no doubt but in the State of Virginia the plotters- 
of disunion recognized their act as treason in declaring war and 
organizing armies. In proof the following is the text of a letter 
written by James M. Mason of Virginia, September 30, 1856, to 
Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War: 

"The governments of North Carolina, South Carolina, and 
Louisiana have already agreed to rendezvous at Raleigh, and 
others will. In a letter yesterday to a committee in South Caro- 
lina I gave it as my judgment in the event of Fremont's election 



the South should not pause but proceed at once to immediate, 
absolute and eternal separation, so I am a candidate for the first 
halter." 

Here is proof of what Judge Mason expected, and no doubt 
when Captain Wilkes took him from the English ship Trent he 
had a real vision of the foretold rope and scaffold. 

Loyalty in the State of Virginia has been misrepresented by 
every possible source of publication and history. There never 
was a time when the majority of the people of the State favored 
secession. 

In i860 the electoral vote of the state was given to Bell and 
Everet, candidates of the American party. Breckenridge and 
Lane, the avowed candidates of the slave power, failed by more 
than 20,000 votes to receive a popular majority. A further 
proof is seen in the vote of the people on holding a convention, 
the members to be chosen by the people in their home places. 
The loyal people polled 1 10,000 votes, those favoring secession 
only 45,000, more than two to one against the slave oligarchy. 

A still further fact: Of the 152 delegates chosen to the conven- 
tion only 32 of them had voted for Breckenridge, while 85 voted 
for Bell and 35 for Douglass. 

The history of what transpired in Richmond about this time 
need not be repeated, only to say, several days before the con- 
vention voted, Fort Sumter " was fired upon and the rebel 
leaders became maddened with the success of their conspiring 
efforts. 

On a promise to submit the whole question to the people, the 
convention by a small majority voted to secede, provided the 
people should have a vote on approving or disproving the action, 
of the convention. The war spirit swept the armies into Vir- 
ginia, and no vote was ever taken, so the state never seceded 
by the consent of the people. 

The best scholars of modem times have failed to define the 



8 



word "patriot!" The Century Dictionary defines it as "one 
who loves his country, and zealously supports and defends it and 
its interests." 

To fully comprehend this definition one is thrown back to the 
incomprehensible meaning of the word "love. " Commentators 
and lexicographers have quite exhausted the vocabulary of our 
language and yet have never told in words the meaning of 
"love.'-' Truly the word "patriot" has never been defined. 

I ask: Is loyalty a garment to be worn, or laid aside at will? 
There is no place for middle ground here. The historical record 
of many men who were educated at the public expense at 
Annapolis and West Point has caused to be written in their 
biographies the statement that they believed they owed alle- 
giance to the state rather than to the general government. Just 
how this can be reconciled as honorable and praiseworthy is the 
riddle of history. Robert E- Lee, of Virginia, was a colonel of 
the First U. S. Cavalry, in 1861. George H. Thomas, of Vir- 
ginia, was a lieutenant-colonel .of the 2d U. S. Cavalry at the 
same date. Here we have two favored sons of Virginia, both of 
whom were educated at the national expense. 

Col. Robert E. Lee could not have hoped for, or expected 
greater honor than to be near the supreme command of the 
U. S. Army and supported by more than 30 millions of people, a 
people whose domain covered 2,785,000 square miles. 

Does any man who can comprehend grandness of oppor- 
tunity, greatness in national resources, believe that Colonel Lee 
laid aside his promising future in the U. S. Army to become the 
commander of the state militia of a commonwealth not capable 
of supporting a permanent established brigade of equipped sol- 
diers? No, Colonel Lee was looking for empire. He had 
visions of the dazzling spendor foretold in the councils of schem- 
ing traitors whose one aim was a slave empire. To believe this 
of Robert E. Lee would more impair his genius than all his 
failures in the field of war. 



The best answer to all the wondering multitude who cannot 
understand his motives is — General Lee was looking for empire. 
He cared but little or nothing for the struggling husbandmen in 
Virginia. He was looking beyond the twenty or thirty thousand 
square miles of worn-out soil, made valueless by degraded toil. 

How changed the story of that other Virginian, Gen. 
George H. Thomas, only one grade below General Lee in the 
same arm of the service, a lieutenant-colonel of the 2d U. S. 
Cavalry. Every inducement and obligation which Virginia 
required of her sons in the form of allegiance to the state must 
have appealed to Thomas, as it did to Lee. If Lee was right, 
Thomas was wrong, for there is no dual or divided allegiance 
between the state and nation. 

George H. Thomas is to-day one of four of the most distin- 
guished generals of modern times. His claim to distinction 
rests upon three great principles of manhood, namely, loyalty, 
fidelity and genius. He rises in the charmed circle of the 
immortals because he maintained all of these essentials to great- 
ness. Colonel Lee failed in two essential elements of greatness, 
namely, loyalty and fidelity. He had genius and to spare. 

One of the first things required of the people of the states of 
the Federal Union when it was established in 1789 was to require 
of them an assurance of their allegiance. The constitution of 
our order, "The Loyal Legion, " enjoins that we enforce unquali- 
fied allegiance to the government of the United States. What is 
allegiance ? 

The interpretation of individual responsibility should engage 
our attention by taking notice of passing events and public 
opinion as expressed. 

A man known throughout the world recently stated in a public 
address that he would, if living in the south and of military age 
in 1 86 1, when the Civil War came, have entered the rebel army. 
Does this boast of a northern man sound well to the more than 



lO 

300,000 southern men who stopped the avalanche of treason on 
the border of the war zone, keeping five great states under the 
flag? This gives to the coming citizen of the republic an object 
lesson worthy of careful study. 

The people of old Virginia wasted four years in despoiling their 
once prosperous state. Her railroads, her highways, and even 
her waterways were destroyed or rendered useless. Her build- 
ings and improvements which had cost millions of money were 
laid in ashes, so that at the close of the war Virginia was truly 
a desolate waste. In this each citizen was a sufferer. The 
waste of life and property, to which must be added the misery and 
anguish entailed, must forever mark the dividing line between 
loyalty and rebellion. 

West Virginia, in 1861, had but little wealth or development 
as compared with the old commonwealth. But she had some- 
thing greater than wealth or developed greatness. She had 
loyal men and women; 32,000 of them stood upright and declared 
for the old flag and the Union. As the fruits of this loyalty they 
saved these mountains of richest treasure and homes of purest 
patriotism and out of this in time of strife and war they built a 
state, a commonwealth, whose progress and prosperity stand 
to-day a wonder in the family of states. 

Is there no distinction between the men who fought in 186 1-5 
in the State of Virginia? We are told each fought for what he 
thought was right. Was the destruction of two hundred years' 
progress and its attendant wealth in old Virginia in four years of 
rebellion, as commendable as the building up of the homes of 
more than 2,000,000 of people in West Virginia? This out of 
the waste and neglected portion of the state. 

The apologists for the Lost Cause have embalmed one sen- 
tence as treason's confession, namely: "They did what they 
believed was right." So did John Brown, and some of these 
same leaders hung him for it. Are we not listening to that of 



II 



which Gibbon, the histo.ian, wrote a'centur}^ ago, touching the 
honor and rewards of military glory, or the benevolent service 
rendered by patriotic men, when he said : "That so long as man- 
kind continues to shower greater applause upon their destroyers 
than upon th( ir benefactors, the thirst for military glory will 
ever be the vice of exalted minds." It may be asked at this 
time : Are we improving the cause of allegiance to the national 
government by assenting to a compromise of silence ? 

The star of human hope, which rose in resplendent glory when 
the independence of our colonies was secured, gave a new mean- 
ing to statecraft, and governments took on a new, a loftier, a 
holier purpose. 

Equality of manhood was no longer to be the dream of vision- 
aries. It was at last to be a reality. Equality of opportunity 
was to be enjoyed by all men. 

One giant alien idea, the right of one man to own another, 
must be vanquished ere the smile of liberty should gladden all 
lives. 

The keepers of this alien idol saw the oncoming tides like 
resistless waves that must ere long sweep away the last vestige of 
barbarism. The prophetic song of freedom's clarion voice 
caused murmurings and threatenings. At last, frenzied with 
rage, this savage alien "slavery" rose in malignant fury and 
poured its wrath upon the nation's life. 

The war of 1861 startled the world and for a little while des- 
potism appeared to triumph, but the hosts of freedom rose to the 
supreme moment. The tread of a mighty army coming from 
every mountain, valley and plain, rushed to the field of conflict. 

Liberty and Union was their war song, their battle-cry. 
Those of this assembly who marched to this immortal music 
know too well the deathless story of that grandest and noblest of 
all the armies of earth. It endured as good soldiers ; it marched, 
it suffered, it fought, it triumphed. Its purpose was ennobled by 



12 



the supreme good, for which heroes and martyrs in all ages have 
contended. The conceptions and impressions for which they 
contended and offered their lives, in more than a thousand 
battles, they fashioned into forms of law. These statutes they 
wrote in blood on the corner-stone of the republic. 

Marching from Appomatox they bore a flag purged and spot- 
less. The barbaric shadow which mystified the symbolism of 
its stars became radiant in its borrowed blue of heaven. Its 
stripes of sacrificial red and spotless white held in their sym- 
bolical folds no emblem of cruelty. 

Our deeds are the nation's fame. The scourge of war and the 
thunder of many battles pointed the way to ultimate peace and 
enduring victory. Our conquering legions subdued millions, 
and vanquished the proud leaders of a chivalrous generation 
whose hope of empire was built on human degradation. 



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